


Cards in the Air

by parisian_girl



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, MFMM Whumptober, Whump, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 03:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16188719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parisian_girl/pseuds/parisian_girl
Summary: An undercover mission + high-stakes poker game + Miss Fisher = ?It is Whumptober, after all.....





	Cards in the Air

**Author's Note:**

> It's Whumptober! My first time writing this for this fandom, and for some unknown reason I picked two prompts. This one's short and sweet, but pretty much fills the "Showdown" prompt, I think ;). It was also inspired by the poker game scene in "Death at the Grand". 
> 
> (The other prompt I picked is "Stay", which I did manage to sneak in a little here, but which also has its own fic. Or will have when I get around to writing it.)
> 
> Thanks so much to the organisers of this - lots of fun and some great prompts! Last time I checked, there were still some available for the taking if anyone fancies it....

_**Showdown - (noun) -** _

_1\. a final test or confrontation intended to settle a dispute._

_2. (in poker or brag) the requirement at the end of a round that the players who remain in should show their cards to determine which is the strongest hand._

 

*****

 

The room was so quiet, she could have heard a hat pin fall.

 Her own breathing was steady, her face giving nothing away, the cards in her hands perfectly still. The few stragglers who had stayed until the bitter end had fallen silent, the usual murmurings and shufflings suspended. She had no idea what time it was. Candles danced their shadows across the walls, and behind her she could feel Jack’s eyes on her back, flickering blue and black in the low light.

It was a good hand.

“All in.” 

An unsettled murmur rippled around the room as her opponent carefully placed a stack of notes in the middle of the table. Even the dealer raised an eyebrow, but Phryne’s eyes never left the man’s face. As she matched him with a banker’s cheque, the mutterings grew louder, and in amongst the voices she imagined she heard Jack swear under his breath.

There was close to twenty thousand pounds on the table in front of her.

They had been playing for hours. Round and round in what felt like never-ending circles, each hand beginning to merge with the next and the stakes rising each time. One by one, the other players had folded until it was just the two of them. A dance, or a duel. She knew Jack would be furious with her, but she wasn’t thinking about that. Her world had narrowed to the game. The end goal: the stack of notes that now sat tantalisingly close, close enough to touch. Money that was still dirty, that hadn’t yet passed through the laundering operation run by the club. Money that they could tie to the owner. Money that the man sitting opposite her couldn’t afford to lose.

_“We’re one man short. Anyone care to join?”_

The opportunity had been gold, too good to pass up. Admittedly not part of the original plan, and potentially problematic if she lost. But having managed to sweet-talk their way into the back room of the club, with the roulette wheel and blackjack tables, she hadn’t been willing to let it go, and by the time Jack had returned from the men’s bathroom she had been sitting at the table.

The dealer nodded. 

A single bead of sweat prickled on her chest, trickling down under the black silk of her dress beneath her breasts, and she could see her opponent’s jaw clench ever so slightly. _Good_. She wasn’t the only one who was feeling the pressure. She could pile it on a bit more.

Raising one hand, she gestured for him to show first, and for a moment she thought he was going to refuse. But then, tortuously slowly, he lowered his hand card by card.

Five of spades.

Four of spades.

Three of spades.

Two of spades.

Ace of spades.

_Straight flush_. 

His eyes glinted, and he couldn’t help the smirk as he laid the last card on the table. Phryne could feel the murmurs, sense them carried around the room on the candle flames, but her gaze never wavered as she reached to her left, lifting the tumbler to her lips and taking a sip of the whisky. She saw his eyelids flicker, telling her to get on with it and to admit defeat. She could feel Jack’s gaze on the bare skin of her back where the scoop of her dress met her shoulder blades, his tension palpable across the six feet that separated them. But still, she took her time.

King of hearts.

Queen of hearts.

Jack of hearts.

Ten of hearts.

Nine of hearts.

S _traight flush_ ….higher ranking.  

She had won by a hair’s breadth.

The next moments happened in slow motion, and later all she would remember was an impression of sounds, and movements, and colours, something akin to a Monet painting. She saw the look of disbelief, and then fury, and then panic on her opponent’s face. She heard the gasps followed by the murmurings, followed by shouts. She felt her own reflexes kick in, jumping up to run after him, black silk flowing behind her and her heels hitting the wooden floor like gunfire. Then a loud noise, a slicing pain in her arm, and then Jack.

All before the world went dark.

 

*******

 

“It was bloody stupid.”

“Jack….”

“No.” Jack paused in his pacing, only long enough to hold up a hand to silence her. “Not this time, Phryne.”

“Mac…” Phryne turned pleading eyes to her friend. “Can you please tell him to calm down?”

“Sorry.” The doctor shook her head as she scanned Phryne’s chart, her hands flicking the paper and her eyes concentrating on the numbers. “Far be it from me to get in the way of the law.”

“Mac!”

“And he does have a point.”

“I always have a point. It’s just you never. Bloody. Listen.”

“Also true….”

“I am here, you know.” Phryne looked from one to the other in indignation, but her efforts were roundly ignored.

“…although pacing up and down like a caged animal isn’t really helping anyone.”

Mac looked pointedly at the Inspector, who immediately stopped pacing and started tapping his foot on the floor instead.

“You put yourself in danger. Again.”

“On second thoughts, carry on pacing,” Mac murmured, replacing the chart on the end of Phryne’s bed.

“It was foolish. Crazy. Did you even think it through? Actually, don’t bother to answer that. I don’t think you ever think anything through.”

“Jack,” Mac placed a placating hand on his arm, and Jack looked at her, startled out of his ranting as if he’d only just realised she was there. “Ease up a bit. You caught the guy. You got the proof. No one died.”

“But she got shot.”

The words hung in the little hospital room, the anguish in them plain, and they all fell silent. It was true. A graze, really, but still, a graze made by a bullet that should never have been fired in the first place. A quarter inch to the right, and it would have hit an artery. Then Mac's job might not have been as easy as a few stitches and a cup full of painkillers.

“And I’m still here.” Phryne’s soft voice cut through the quiet, repeating her words from earlier. Pulling herself up into more of an upright position, she reached out her good arm. “Jack? I’m still here.”

“I’ll be around if you need me.” Mac gave Jack a gentle prod towards the bed. “She’ll survive.”

“Only to do the same thing again.” He took a reluctant step, took Phryne’s outstretched fingers in his own.

“More than likely.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed as the door clicked softly shut, shoulders slumping, his body suddenly exhausted.

“Jack?”

He was silent for a long moment, his jaw working, before he finally raised his gaze to meet hers and she saw, for the first time, the pain in his eyes. _Those eyes._ She let go of his hand and lifted her fingers to his cheek, the five o’clock shadow slightly rough on his skin.

“I’m sorry.”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

“It would take more than that.”

But he shook his head at her feeble attempt at a joke.

“I’m being serious, Phryne.”

He looked down again at his hands, his fingers fiddling with the hem of his coat. It was the same coat he had worn to the club, and she realised that he must have been here at the hospital all night and all day.

Here. With her.

“You keep putting yourself in danger. You’re reckless. Even going to the foreshore is a drama with your driving. I can just about deal with that now, but last night….”

He fell silent. Outside, she could hear voices, and birds in the tree outside the window. Twenty four hours ago, she would have been thinking about what lay ahead. Thinking, if she was honest, about what to wear, as well as about their mission. Thinking about laundered money, and perfume, and where to conceal her dagger under the dress with the thigh-high split. Thinking about going to the club with Jack.

“Where did you learn to play poker like that, anyway?”

“Where do you think?” She smiled, and then winced as she moved her bandaged arm awkwardly. “My father.”

“Be careful….”

“It’s fine.” She settled herself again, cursing under her breath. “He taught me when I was five. My mother was furious when she found out. I’d beaten one of the boys down the street but he’d bet his bike on winning, so of course I took it. His mother came round and nearly gave me a hiding. Then my mother did actually give me one.”

“I know how she feels.”

But he was finally smiling.

They sat for a few moments in silence. Her eyes began to feel heavy, worn down with the weight of the past day and the drugs that were finally beginning to kick in, and she reached for Jack’s hand again as she leant her head back to rest against the pillow. Her arm throbbed, a dull rhythm that matched her slow and steady heartbeat. A sign, she thought, that she was alive.

“Jack?”

Her voice was sleepy, her eyes half-closed, and she felt his fingers brush a stray strand of hair from her forehead.

“You should sleep.”

“Will you take me home?”

“I don’t think Dr Mac would…”

“I don’t mean right now.” Her mind felt pleasantly fuzzy, despite her body’s exhaustion, and she wondered vaguely what Mac had given her for the pain. Whatever it was, she quite liked it. “I mean later. Whenever I can get out of here. Will you take me?”

“If it means you’ll stay out of trouble at least for the journey there, then yes. I’ll drive you home.”

“And will you stay?” Her words were slightly slurred as the drug took full effect, but she was past caring. Sleep. And Jack. Those two things were all she wanted.

His voice sounded as if it was coming from underwater. Muffled, cracked, as if he was trying not to cry. But he was holding her hand still, his fingers and his words holding her safe as she surrendered to a blissful darkness where nothing could ever hurt again.

“Yes, love. Now sleep.”

 

*****

 

When she woke, the first rays of dawn creeping around the curtains and the first signs of life stirring on the ward outside, he was still there, in his suit and coat, his head dropped forward onto his chest as he slept, and his hand still holding hers.

**Author's Note:**

> The variant of poker here is 5 card draw (basically because that's the only one I know!). Where there's a tie - such as both players ending up with straight flushes - the higher ranking cards will always win. It's not played much in casinos now, but I figured it maybe was then and even if not, I could make an exception ;).


End file.
